In the last half year the international Pirate Movement has been undergoing a fundamental search for direction. There is a lack of consensus as to how the movement should be steered and in which direction.  There needs to be a reasoned debate and the Pirate Times has a job to do in reporting what is happening to the Pirates of the world. However, we have come under unacceptable pressure from ‘leadership’ to temper our articles and the comments on our articles. This is unacceptable and has a negative effect on the team moral and our ability to do our work freely. Today (May 3rd) is the World Press Freedom Day, an excellent day to emphasize our independence in reporting on the pirate movement as a journalistic medium.

“Without general elections, without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, without the free battle of opinions, life in every public institution withers away, becomes a caricature of itself, and bureaucracy rises as the only deciding factor.”
– Rosa Luxemburg, Reported in Paul Froelich, Die Russiche Revolution (1940).

The Pirate movement is very much still in its infancy – despite our successes in countries across the world, as a movement it is still experiencing growing pains as each party seeks to define itself and carve out its own sphere in the political world of its own country.  One area where these growing pains are very apparent, for example, are in the relationship of national parties to the umbrella NGO of Pirate Parties International, and also the internal struggles in Pirate Party Germany.

As we have worked to make clear – we are an independent organisation, with volunteer writers who write what they want to, not by some editorial decree.  We don’t shy away from talking about the movement, even on a “warts and all” basis.  Other than obvious spam, we don’t remove comments on our articles.  We strive to keep our articles neutral in tone, and clearly mark any opinion pieces which we run.

Each of us on the team believes in the Pirate movement and its core principles of transparency, accountability and freedom.

We do not blindly republish press releases, we do not write “puff pieces”.  We are not a promotional machine.  We report on news, and matters of interest to Pirates around the world.  We will not shy away from writing critical articles if we feel they’re needed, and far from apologising for that fact, we are proud to openly proclaim it and wear it as a badge of pride.

We will continue to report on anything which any of our team feels should be reported on, and we openly welcome any contributions – even (perhaps especially) if it’s a rebuttal to something we have already published.

– The Editorial team at Pirate Times (on behalf of our team-members)

Featured image: CC-BY-ND, Christian V.

About Josef Ohlsson Collentine

I’m a dual citizen (American/Swede) and try to integrate my reflections from a more global perspective if possible. I’m the organizational leader for Pirate Times and work actively to strengthen the pirate movement through this work as well as being the international contact for Piratpartiet (PPSE). Elected board member of PPSE for 2015-2018.
If you would like to ask me something I speak English, Swedish and Spanish. Find me on the links below

 

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In the last half year the international Pirate Movement has been undergoing a fundamental search for direction. There is a lack of consensus as to how the movement should be…